History of coffee

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Main article: Coffee

The history of coffee has been recorded as far back as the ninth century. During that time, coffee beans were available only in their native habitat, Ethiopia, but, when the Arab world began expanding its trade horizons, the beans moved into northern Africa and were mass-cultivated. From there, the beans entered the Indian and European markets, and the popularity of the beverage spread.

1 Origins
2 Coffee in Ethiopia
3 Coffee in the Arab world
4 Coffee in Europe
5 Coffee in the rest of the world
6 Notes
7 References

[edit] Origins

Main article: Origins of coffee

The word "coffee" entered English in 1598 via Italian caffè. This word was created via Turkish kahve, which in turn came into being via Arabic qahwa. This last is a word of uncertain etymology, which can mean both "coffee" and "wine".

There are several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink itself. One account involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia, the legend goes, he observed goats of unusual vitality, and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same vitality. A similar myth attributes the discovery of coffee to an Ethiopian goatherder named Kaldi.

One possible origin of both the beverage and the name is the Kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, where the coffee plant originated (its name there is bunn or bunna).

[edit] Coffee in Ethiopia

The coffee tree (Coffea arabica) is a flowering evergreen shrub indigenous to the Kaffa region in Ethiopia. Other species of the coffee plant, including C. liberica and C. robusta, have also been discovered growing wild in other regions of Africa.

In Ethiopia, coffee beans were initially consumed in their intact form, not brewed as a drink. Monks ate the beans to help them stay awake during prayers.

[edit] Coffee in the Arab world

A coffee-house in Palestine, circa 1900.

Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean.

The earliest mention of coffee may be a reference to Bunchum in the works of the 9th century CE physician Razi, but more definite information on the preparation of a beverage from the roasted coffee berries dates from several centuries later.

The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled "Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa". He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Coffee's usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular among Sufis. Al-Jaziri's manuscript work is of considerable interest with regards to the history of coffee in Europe as well. A copy reached the French royal library, where it was translated in part by Antoine Galland as De l'origine et du progrès du Cafe. The translation traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.

The 19th-century orientalist Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy edited the first two chapters of al-Jaziri's manuscript and included it in the second edition of his Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826, 3 vols.). Galland's 1699 work was recently reissued (Paris: Editions La Bibliothque, 1992).

Consumption of coffee was outlawed in Mecca in 1511, and in Cairo in 1532, but in the face of the drink's immense popularity, the decrees were later rescinded. In 1554, the first coffeehouse in Istanbul opened.

[edit] Coffee in Europe

Coffee was first imported to Italy, according to historic sources^{[citation needed]}. The vibrant trade between the Italian city of Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt, and the East brought a large variety of African goods, including coffee, to this leading European port. Venetian merchants decided to introduce coffee to the wealthy in Venice, charging them heavily for the beverage. In this way, coffee was introduced to Europe.

[edit] Coffee in England

Largely through the efforts of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, coffee became available in England no later than the 16th century according to Leonhard Rauwolf's 1583 account ^{[citation needed]}. The first coffeehouse in England was opened and operated in Oxford by a man named either Jacob or Jacobs, a Turkish Jew, in 1650. The first coffeehouse in London was opened two years later in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the servant of Daniel Edwards, a trader in Turkish goods. Edwards imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The popularity of coffeehouses spread rapidly in Europe, and later, America. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England.

That women were not allowed in English coffeehouses during this period is a myth. In fact, coffeehouses can be seen as largely democratizing establishments, as men and women from a wide variety of social strata and political stripes flocked to these hubs of reading, discussion, and debate.

Many believed coffee to have several medicinal properties in this period. For example, a 1661 tract entitled "A character of coffee and coffee-houses", written by one "M.P.", lists some of these perceived virtues:

"'Tis extolled for drying up the Crudities of the Stomack, and for expelling Fumes out of the Head. Excellent Berry! which can cleanse the English-man's Stomak of Flegm, and expel Giddinesse out of his Head"

Not everyone was in favour of this new commodity, however. For example, the anonymous 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" declared:

…the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE […] has […] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age.[2]

[edit] Coffee in France

Antoine Galland (1646-1715) in his aforementioned translation described the Muslim association with coffee, tea and chocolate: "We are indebted to these great [Arab] physicians for introducing coffee to the modern world through their writings, as well as sugar, tea, and chocolate." Galland reported that he was informed by Mr. de la Croix, the interpreter of King Louis XIV of France, that coffee was brought to Paris by a certain Mr. Thevenot, who had travelled through the East. On his return to that city in 1657, Thevenot gave some of the beans to his friends, one of whom was de la Croix. However, the major spread of the popularity of this beverage in Paris was soon to come. In 1669, Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Muhammed IV, arrived in Paris with his entourage bringing with him a large quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they provide their French and European guests with coffee to drink, but they also donated some beans to the royal court. Between July 1669 and May 1670, the Ambassador managed to firmly establish the custom of drinking coffee among Parisians.

[edit] Coffee in Austria and Poland

The first coffeehouse in Austria opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, by using supplies from the spoils obtained after defeating the Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki, opened the coffee house and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee. Until recently, this was celebrated in Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window. The first coffeehouses in Poland were opened in Kraków in the 16th or 17th century because of their close trade ties with the East, most notably the Turks.

[edit] Coffee in the rest of the world

The introduction of coffee to the Americas is attributed to France through its colonisation of many parts of the continent starting with the Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where the first French coffee plantations were founded. The first coffee plantation in Brazil occurred in 1727 when Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta smuggled seeds from French Guiana. By the 1800's, Brazil’s harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to a drink for the masses. Brazil, which like most other countries cultivates coffee as a commercial commodity, relied heavily on slave labor from Africa for the viability of the plantations until the abolition of slavery in 1888. The success of coffee in 17th-century Europe was paralleled with the spread of the habit of tobacco smoking all over the continent during the course of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48).

For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazil was the biggest producer of coffee and a virtual monopolist in the trade. However, a policy of maintaining high prices soon opened opportunities to other nations, such as Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia and Viet Nam, now second only to Brazil as the major coffee producer in the world. Large-scale production in Viet Nam began following normalization of trade relations with the US in 1995.[3] Nearly all of the coffee grown there is Robusta.^[1]

Australia is a minor coffee producer, with little product for export, but its coffee history goes back to 1880 when the first of 500 acres began to be developed in an area between northern New South Wales and Cooktown. Today there are several producers of Arabaca coffee in Australia that use a mechanical harvesting system invented in 1981. [4]

[edit] Notes

^ International Coffee Organization. Total Production of Exporting Countries: Crop Years 2000/01 to 2005/06. [1] Accessed December 8, 2006.

[edit] References

The Blessed Bean - history of coffee. Retrieved June 19th, 2006.
1949 Encyclopedia Britannica. Otis, McAllister & Co. 1954
Birsel, Salâh. - Kahveler kitabı. - 1. baskı. - Istanbul : Koza Yayınları, 1975. - (Olaylar-belgeler-anılar ; 8).
Burn, Jacob Henry, d. (1869). A descriptive catalogue of the London traders, tavern, and coffee-house toke. 2nd ed. London.
Chew, Samual C (1974). The Crescent and the Rose. Oxford University Press, New York.
Darby, M. (1983) The Islamic Perspective, An aspect of British Architecture and Design in the 19th century. Leighton House Gallery, London.
Davids, Kenneth (1991). Coffee.
Ellis, Aytoun (1956). The Penny Universities : A History of the Coffee-Houses. London : Secker & Warburg.
Galland, Antoine (1699) De l’origine et du progrez du café, Éd. originale J. Cavelier Paris, 1992- La Bibliothèque, coll. L'Écrivain Voyageur
Illy, Francesco & Riccardo (1989). From Coffee to Espresso
Ibn al-Imād al-Hanbali (d.1089 AH/1679 AD). Shadharāt al-dhahab fi akhbār man dhahab, al-Juz' 8. Cairo, 1931.